LUDINGTON, MI – Jurors at the trooper-murder trial of Eric John Knysz were to hear a third day of testimony Friday, Feb. 21.

MLive Muskegon Chronicle is covering the trial live, with updates as they happen posted in the comments section below this story.

The court day was scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m.

Knysz, 20, of the Irons area, is accused of shooting Michigan State Police Trooper Paul K. Butterfield II in the head after the trooper pulled over Knysz and his wife, Sarah Renee Knysz, in a traffic stop around 6:20 p.m. Sept. 9 on Custer Road north of Townline Road in rural Mason County’s Freesoil Township.

Knysz is charged with murder of a peace officer, which carries a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole; felony firearm, a consecutive two-year felony; and carrying a concealed weapon and motor vehicle theft, both normally five-year felonies. He is charged as a second-time habitual offender based on a 2008 Lake County conviction of first-degree home invasion.

Detective interviews murder suspect Eric John Knysz the morning after death of MSP TrooperAn audio recording of Michigan State Police Detective Gary Green interviewing murder suspect Eric John Knysz plays during the fourth day of the murder trial that took place before Mason County's 51st Circuit Court Judge Richard I. Cooper in Ludington on Feb. 21, 2014. Knysz is charged with murder in the shooting death of Michigan State Police Trooper Paul K. Butterfield II on Sept. 9, 2013, during a routine traffic stop. The recording was made the morning after the shooting occurred, at Munson hospital.

Thursday’s trial day included testimony by the state trooper who shot and arrested Knysz outside a Manistee County gas station, the trooper who spotted the allegedly stolen car Knysz was driving, and the Lake County sheriff’s deputies who stopped the red pickup truck he’d been driving when he allegedly shot Butterfield, by then driven by Eric’s mother.

John
S. Hausman covers courts, prisons, the environment and local government for
MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow
him on Twitter.